Walking Away Part 1

I was just given the most magnificent temporary phone number. In the middle of my switch between carriers, they gave me this number: 468-0003. When I first saw it on my screen I didn't believe it was a phone number. Triple zeros? Is this thing real? But it was and it's like a number phone that isn't a random set of numbers but one made to stand out.

The first three numbers, '4-6-8'. All even, all two digits apart. When your finger dials it on a telephone keypad for the first time, the numbers create this symmetrical triangle, an arrow really, that points to you. Four, across to the right, skip the five, press the six, diagonally down and to the left to rest, briefly, at the eight.

Transitioning to the final four numbers is so elegant as well. After the brief rest at the eight the finger will simply need to more downward to the zero. Hitting to three times repeatedly. The simplicity of this action is just a dream. We are creatures of habit. We like to press buttons and without the need for the thought or accuracy of the mind interfering, this appeases our animal instinct.

The lone three brings closure to the number. Three zeroes followed by an actual three only seems fitting. The three is never alone though. The magical number that song once sang about, it wouldn't be right to put any other number there. The three makes it human, it makes the dialer know that another person is on the line. It stopped the routine pleasure of the zero presses, and brought the caller back into this world in which we don't control. As much as we want to keep pressing the zeroes to infinity like a child on a play phone, we can't. We have to come back at some point and the three does this. It says the number ends and the call with another starts.


As much as i wanted to keep using the number, I couldn't. I was committed to another.